To Be Or...- Let's Go With Not

To Be Or Not To Be -This Manhattan Theater Club selection is in previews now at the Friedman Theatre. As Good As News would like to say it's a "sophisticated black comedy set in wartime Poland". Unfortunately that was the 1942 movie version, an Ernst Lubitsch classic starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny. "Lots of Laughs"? Sorry again, that was the 1983 remake with Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks. The 2008 stage version never gets off the ground as the heroic efforts of a Polish theater troop to resist the Nazi invasion, because actors can do anything, needs an update with some attitude.

As a comedy, the show is stiff and dated. David Rasche as Josef, a leading light of the Polish stage, seems to be heading on a camping trip at times, but the rest of the cast doesn't want to come along. Is he really mocking his own character, or is that just an earnest effort to do a good job playing a bad actor? If Mel Brooks staged a remake this script would be punched up with a few dozen more screwball lines and pumped up with a lot more physical comedy. A consistently camp approach with some snarky asides might also work (lots of people liked the self-referential The Thirty-Nine Steps, although I was not among them). Either way, the show needs something. The audience wasn't laughing and the material did not create the kind of emotional involvement needed to work as a drama while the comedy was falling flat.

The use of newsreel like footage projected onto the theater curtain as a transitional device was highly effective, fast forwarding painlessly then meshing almost perfectly into the next scene on the stage. The projection design and the bones of the plot (which, after all, were strong enough to support two successful movies) could have led to something more, but this show is still screaming "get me rewrite" and the deadline is at hand.

The Visitor arrived a little late

The Visitor - Chuck Rose's symposium usually screens films before general release, providing fodder for reviews here at As Good As News before a film's tidal wave of publicity crests. Last night's class featured The Visitor. Although it's playing in New York, The Visitor has not yet been released in New Jersey and select areas within North Dakota. By waiting, Mr. Rose was able to schedule Writer/Director Thomas McCarthy and Producer Mary Jane Skalski as guests for the post film Q and A. Shockingly, the Times and other critics did not await the New Jersey premier to release their reviews, which were consistently favorable. As Good As News won't cover ground that's already been thoroughly trampled. In brief, The Visitor has no box office stars, no Hollywood ending, but inspired casting, a moving story and the wisdom to leave the "s" off Visitor[s] and let Richard Jenkins find his rhythm as the title character re-inhabiting his own life make this film well worth seeing.

Yella -

Yella - Yella (Nina Hoss) is running from a failed company and a broken marriage -including a stalking ex who plays on her guilt. She finds work in a new town, but accepts a ride to the station from Ben (Hinnerk Schoenemann), that very angry ex, who hijacks Yella and drives off a bridge into the Elbe. Both Yella and Ben somehow emerge to reach the shore. Yella grabs her bags and catches the train, leaving the unconscious Ben on the river bank, but for the rest of the film she's haunted by the sound of water, an ominous caw from a lone crow and a foreboding rustle of wind.

The new job is a fiasco, her putative supervisor Ott-Schmitt is fired for misconduct on the day of Yella's arrival. Yella's quick witted reaction to the mess reveals a strain of amorality and a naive intelligence, traits that will define her fate. Yella steals a document pouch from Ott-Schmitt's former office at his request, then withholds it from Ott-Schmitt until he offers her a comparable job at his next company. But the pouch contains only cash, Ott-Schmitt has no future, no ability to get a job, much less offer one. Yella's negotiation was doomed before it began, and she ends up on the side of the road.

Adrift back at her hotel, Yella is recruited by Philipp (Devid Striesow), a venture capitalist negotiating to buy a stake in a start-up company. Philipp asks Yella to assist him as, essentially, a prop in a key meeting. She surprises him by discovering a real flaw in the target company's balance sheet, allowing Philipp to cut a better deal. Yella does not seem surprised, or disillusioned, when she learns Philipp is getting paid under the table by his buy-out targets to give the targets a sweeter deal at the expense of his employer. Despite her ability to spot real problems in the target companies and negotiate like a veteran, Yella remains naive when it comes to Philipp. Even after she knows he's a crook (who she could control by threatening a report to his employer) she accepts a fee that's a small fraction of the value she's producing and is terrified she will be dismissed when Philipp tests her and finds she is willing to take a "forgotten" 25,000 euros.

Ben reappears in Yella's room and she runs to Philipp. Romance ensues and for Yella it's the real thing. Phillip's dream is to amass enough kickbacks to buy a company he's identified as a unique opportunity to make millions - all to avoid being a suburban family man with a child, a garage and a green jaguar, the very picture that seems to call to Yella. But Yella's been separated, bankrupted, stalked, drowned and fired - and she's ready to cling to Philipp, even when he's fired after his employer discovers his scheme. Yella pushes too hard to make Pilipp' dream come true with one last big score and the results are disastrous, then eerie.

Director Christian Petzold shoots against spare backdrops and lingers on Yella. Nina Hoss holds the audience with an effective, understated performance that adds grace to an otherwise uninteresting film. Something may be lost in cultural translation (this is a German film with English subtitles), as Yella's trek from guilt and failure in her home of Wittenberg in the former East Germany across the Elbe to flash, cash and moral disaster in the former West Germany means more to a German audience. Other reviewers have hailed the film's metaphysics, but the repeated omens and alternative ending added little for me. The title link will take you to one of many reviewers who felt otherwise. If you want a film about an accountant caught up in a con game, As Good As News recommends The Producers.

Grace Is ......Why Don't We Talk About That Later

Grace Is Gone -Stanley is an orderly, organized, buttoned up kind of guy from Minnesota. His walk is a little funny, but he's a manager in a Homestore. He's married to Grace, an army sergeant stationed in a war zone. He knows when and how to tell a nosey support group to back off and if there's some strain at home, at least he believes he's in control, until two soldiers knock on the door with the news - Grace is gone.

Stanley has trouble comprehending Grace's death himself and he can't find a way to tell his daughters. In a blend of procrastinating panic, a need to recreate his own relationship with the girls and a desire to grant them a few last days of simple happiness, Stanley asks the girls what they want to do. He shocks them by granting 8 year old Dawn's request for a trip to the Enchanted Gardens' Theme Park in Florida.

Stanley starts the trip on a desperate edge, keeping up appearances when his daughters are watching but vulnerable to a complete loss of control. Gradually, Stanley loosens up, starts to listen and adds a playful peer dimension to his relationship with his daughters, especially the older Heidi, who not only senses a serious problem, but starts to confirm it with some investigation.

This is a simple story told with editing, cinematography and score free of distraction. Will Stanley hold himself together, will he build a deeper relationship with his daughters, when and how will the girls learn the news and how will the family react? Extraordinary performances by John Cusack (Stanley) and Shelan O'Keefe (Heidi) build a moving drama around these questions, each communicating volumes with small gestures. A few extra pounds and glasses may be as far over the top as John Cusack will ever get, perhaps it's his year for an Oscar. This picture succeeds completely on its own terms but don't expect a light evening, the happy ending is a superbly written, well delivered eulogy.

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly - Don't Pull The Plug

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly - Jean -Dominique Bauby emerges from a coma to learn that he has lost all brain stem function, is paralyzed from the neck down and can only think, hear, blink, and see with one eye. This is not an action picture. Julian Schnabel directs a moving film, based on Bauby's critically acclaimed autobiography. Jean-Dominique (Jean-Do for short, pronounced John Doe) was no everyman, before or after his stroke, unless every man can find reason to live in the most difficult circumstances. Much of the film is seen from his perspective, expanding forward and back from the moment he regains consciousness. The film includes a very effective, and funny, "interior dialogue" in which Jean-Do speaks to caregivers and visitors, who cannot hear him because, although his brain can speak, his vocal chords cannot. Jean-Do quickly recalls that he was the celebrity playboy editor of Elle, with three children, their mother (whom he abandoned for a mistress) who visits faithfully and a beloved mistress, who never arrives. His speech therapist develops a method of communication - she reads an alphabet reordered based on frequency of use and he blinks when she gets to his letter of choice. His first sentence is "I want death", but Jean-Do lives inside his memory and his dreams and even manages a surprising life in the present, retaining a sly sense of humor, building new relationships with his family and caregivers and laboriously, letter by letter, creating that autobiography.

The film is at its strongest when it stays closest to the book and the first person viewpoint. Jean-Do's humor, perspective, and sometimes poetic narrative carry the day. To be fair, the embellishments work too, each dream and memory sequence, each scene shot from outside Jean-Do's perspective, adds to his story. The scene in which the mother of Jean-Do's children must function as his voice in a telephone conversation with his mistress is a sledgehammer to the gut. The film's only significant weakness is the result of an editing dilemma. Each scene works, but some scenes drag the viewer perilously close to the edge of pathos, and two hours on emotional edge creates a resistance that begins to dull the film's effectiveness. The scenes taken most directly from the author's perspective best avoid this dilemma.

So, you are thinking, why would I want to see a low budget, independent, French language film with subtitles about a dying paraplegic instead of Die Hard 4 when I only get out to the movies once every two weeks. Two reasons. First, every actress in this film is beautiful and exceptionally talented (we won't even mention the subtle score or the extraordinary performance by Mathieu Amalric as Jean-Dominique Bauby - all he's got to work with is one eye - My Left Foot was a comparative piece of cake). Second, before watching this movie, I would have left a living will, instructing all concerned to "pull the plug" if I suffered a stroke that left me in Jean-Do's condition. Now, I'm rethinking that instruction.

Amexicano: If Only I Had Gone Out For Popcorn

Amexicano - Bruno, a lonely, unemployed Italian-American schlub from Queens played engagingly by Carmine Famiglietti, takes a construction job to stave off eviction. Step one is a street corner stop to hire a day laborer from a group of waiting Mexicans. After a false start with the aggressive and angry Diego (Manny Perez), Bruno finds the hard-working Ignacio (Raul Castillo). A sweet, deceptively simple buddy comedy ensues, as Bruno and Ignacio form a genuine friendship despite the language barrier and Bruno's cultural preconceptions. The plot thickens when Ignacio's attractive wife Gabriela (Jennifer Pena) applies some heat and then swirls in two new directions, each fundamentally consistent with the characters and story set in motion by screenwriter Famiglietti and Director Matthew Bonifacio - until the final moments of the picture. The ending clashed jarringly with my expectations and changed my view of the film radically. As an actor, Famiglietti shines in an odd couple comedy, as a writer he avoids stereotypes throughout the story but works too hard to do so in the ending, converting a film with a genuine feel into a somewhat awkward political statement. Despite this, the film is worth seeing - I cared enough so I was angry about the ending. Cast and crew were remarkably productive with a very limited budget and you will be seeing them again